How to format your references using the BMC Family Practice citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Family Practice. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

1. McArdle J. Animal Welfare Act’s Changes Deserve Praise, Not Panic. Science. 2000;290:1299c–300c.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Koechlin E, Hyafil A. Anterior prefrontal function and the limits of human decision-making. Science. 2007;318:594–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Mora C, Rollo A, Tittensor DP. Comment on “Can we name Earth’s species before they go extinct?” Science. 2013;341:237.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Sharples JM, Meharg AA, Chambers SM, Cairney JW. Symbiotic solution to arsenic contamination. Nature. 2000;404:951–2.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

1. Ippolito LJ Jr. Satellite Communications Systems Engineering. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

1. Zavarise G, Wriggers P, editors. Trends in Computational Contact Mechanics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Rosin PL, Žunić J. Measuring Convexity via Convex Polygons. In: Huang F, Sugimoto A, editors. Image and Video Technology – PSIVT 2015 Workshops: RV 2015, GPID 2013, VG 2015, EO4AS 2015, MCBMIIA 2015, and VSWS 2015, Auckland, New Zealand, November 23-27, 2015. Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 38–47.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for BMC Family Practice.

Blog post

1. Hale T. Apparently No One Knows Where Loofahs Come From. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/your-bathrooms-loofah-probably-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

1. Government Accountability Office. Commercial Space Launches: FAA Needs Continued Planning and Monitoring to Oversee the Safety of the Emerging Space Tourism Industry. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

1. Bradnan DM. Cherelle Wilt in Theobroma cacao. Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana; 2015.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

1. Williams J. An Artist’s Childhood, Etched in Trauma. New York Times. 2017;:C4.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1, 2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	BMC Family Practice
Abbreviation	BMC Fam. Pract.
ISSN (online)	1471-2296
Scope	Family Practice